You're Taller Than Me Now, Sammy
by Casey2y5
Summary: Dean muses on how big Sam has gotten when he realizes that his baby brother is taller than him now. Pre-Series. Dean POV. Part of the Stanford Days 'verse but can be read as a stand-alone.


**Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Kripke and Co. I'm just borrowing them because they need to be happy sometimes!**

I remembered Sammy when he couldn't have been more than eight hours old. He'd been small, only about six pounds, and had looked even tinier in Dad's arms. I had clambered up onto the bed beside Mom, glad she seemed to be okay. At just barley four, I had been worried they would have to hurt her to get my baby brother. I was in awe, unable to believe this tiny thing was mine. In all honesty, I thought he looked kinda boring. He had been asleep, but I fell in love as soon as I saw his little fist reach up and brush his face. His tiny nails looked incredibly sharp to my eyes and I reached out and grabbed his hand so he wouldn't scratch himself.

"No Sammy. You'll hurt yourself." He didn't wake up to my relief; I had been worried I grabbed his hand too hard.

"Is that what you want us to call him, Dean? Sammy?" I thought for a moment.

"No. I get to call him Sammy. You can call him said." I had said it only as a child could, and Dad would later say that I had said with such conviction they actually listened to me. Of course, as babies are apt to do he got bigger.

I wasn't allowed to hold Sam very often because he was so little and I might drop him. At least that's what Mom said. When Dad nearly threw him at me that night though it seemed to me as if he was really big. I know now that it was probably just the weight of responsibility hitting my shoulders. From that point on though whenever something big happened I would make a mental note of how big Sam had gotten. There wasn't really another way to keep track of it.

As we got older, I was always surprised when Sam got bullied at a new school. To me, at least, he was so big no kid in their right mind would want to pick on him- I always forced myself to remember that they hadn't known him since he was a newborn, that they saw a shorter-than-average kid who was new, with an absent father. I hated those kids and how Sam just took it. It made me want to rip their lungs out.

Despite being a small kid once Sam hit his growth spurt the kid grew. It seemed like he needed a new wardrobe every month, and shopping for things like clothes had long since fallen to me, like all things related to taking care of Sammy. I had to quit buying myself new, or even used clothes just to keep him covered.

"Dean, what about you?" It had been our third shopping trip that year and it was only June. I smirked. His voice was still crackly, especially when he was irritated. It bugged me that my little mess of blankets was growing up. Dad was starting to see him as old enough to hunt with us, or even just me sometimes- he was becoming an addition to the army. I saw him as a parent would though. He was growing up, and soon, I worried, would start making his own decisions.

"Don't worry about me, Sammy." I bought the clothes and left with guilty-looking Sam in tow. Last year, when he was fifteen, he started to be able to fit into my clothes without drowning. I had long since quit marking his height in my head, but this stood out to me as particularly important. I was relieved, partially because I would be able to start buying clothes for the both of us again, and partly because I thought it meant he was about done growing. I was only an inch or two taller than Dad after all, and I didn't recall anyone on Mom's side being too tall.

Part of me was sad to lose the distinct passage of time that was my brother getting taller- literally seeing him grow up, but even I had to admit that it would be easier. Not that he would need less protecting, not with the Winchester luck. As that luck would have it however, he didn't stop growing. He barley even slowed down. I realized that one day, about a year later, when I noticed the old AC/DC t-shirt he was wearing, probably one of mine, rode up well over his navel when he reached for a cereal bowl in the crappy apartment we were in that week. I wasn't too concerned; I had been thinking Sam needed to start finding his own sense of style soon anyway.

"We have to go shopping soon." I barley glanced up from the old tome I was pursing.

"Why?" His resulting whine was a combination of pure teenager and pure Sam that almost made me laugh. Dad may have seen us as little soldiers, but I would always see Sam as Dad should, just a kid. I was happy that at least in the physical sense Sam was growing up normal, and I was glad that he was unperturbed by the crap we saw, that he was doing something we almost didn't end up doing loads of times- growing up.

"You're taller than me now, Sammy. Don't fit into those clothes anymore."

"Oh. He grinned pouring his cereal and I breathed a sigh of relief at getting my wardrobe back.


End file.
